


Happy

by manubibi



Category: Free!
Genre: Depression, Gen, Metafiction, Nagisa's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 03:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3473552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manubibi/pseuds/manubibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little meta and gen fic about the first episodes of season 1, seen through Nagisa's point of view taking in account as a reading key that period of depression he lived before the beginning of his first year. That is only my interpretation of the events!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [altairattorney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/altairattorney/gifts).



He sits bathing in the pale light of the morning, but with no warmth to touch his soft skin even as his eyes glance outside, no rays to break through the icy shell that has built around him this year, covering his eyes like a veil of suffocating, deep emptiness. It all feels distant, unimportant, it all feels dulled out almost as someone forced him underwater, and nobody can pull him out of there. And his heart cannot even hurt as much as he feels it should. It just beats, void, while nothing can touch him. That should be power, but it only feels as if his existence is void, useless. He cries a lot, because harming himself with happy thoughts from the past is the only way he has to feel anything. When he does not push himself even just to get out of bed, he stares at the void, seeing no way to get out of it. The worst thing is, years ago he would willingly jump out of bed, flying out the door, running with speed always building up under his feet without realizing how much effort that requires. It was never an effort to begin with. Now he just opens his eyes on another day, with the same dulled and empty look, wishing to just sleep for another entire day. He does not work anymore like he used to. What if he is broken? What if it will never get better? Every day just seems to flow like thick mud, with infinite tiredness, dragging itself not strongly enough to move forward. And night comes every time whispering that the day has been fruitless, useless, that he is not good enough to satisfy those expectations pushed on him, those rocks that keep pulling him down in a dark and unknown pit, trying to make him blind even when birds fly alive and free in a bright, indifferent sky.  
  
It is why, now that he smiles brightly and shines on his friends as he is supposed to, he absolutely could never do that to himself again. Now that he is miraculously out of that quicksand trap, he will not let anything in his way. He will not wake up again thinking he would rather not exist. He has realized one day that it was not dignity to consume himself with things he did not care about. It was not honorable nor worthy of respect for him to satisfy someone else's wishes. He fought for weeks, yelled, burnt bright with a steel-melting fire nobody could oppose, longing for a final release. Those chains were never meant to last.  
"Let's start a swim club!" He proposes, looking at Makoto and Haruka with a desperation stemming straight from that place. Or a sauna club. Any club. Anything  _but_  just school. It is important. It is vitally important. He cannot tell them why it is so important for him to start a club. He just knows he does not want to spend one more day in those disastrous conditions, only caring about school and grades. He cannot do it, he just cannot even consider that possibility. Haruka still has to catch back with him, with his waves, because Nagisa knows Haru-chan would understand it is not just a whim. Luckily, Makoto seems to like the idea of a swim club for Haruka. He clearly has his own agenda, but the blond rockhopper appreciates his help. When Haruka jumps on board - even if unwillingly, or at least it seems so - he finally starts feeling as light-hearted as he used to be. He is not a child anymore, but he promised himself to jump into the sun with infinite energy again almost as if he still was one, forever. There is nothing bad in seeing the world through pure, happy eyes.  
  
He recognizes pain in Rin's eyes. He sees it so deep and pulsating into him that it throws him aback. He knows it's there, he knows it's pain that is keeping his friend from smiling again. Rin is  _poisoned_ , and Nagisa understands it with clarity, but he has no knowledge, no way to know what happened. No way to help, no way to even begin to support him, and he would. He still remembers about how he hung from his lips when they were kids. The thought is bittersweet, the memories fogged with sadness because it was all so simple back them. All he has now is just bits and pieces of a puzzle that reminds him of those days. Things that pain him just to think about them. And that is why he tries not to think about it.  
But he sees that poison, that hurt, also slither toward Haruka, affect him, wrap around his heart. As such, Makoto also feels that hurt sting him. Makoto always absorbs negative feelings like a sponge, acting like those are always his burdens. Makoto is too good, too kind, too selfless. And that worries him. Rin's pain affects them all, he finally realizes. It is a problem that will be a burden for all of them. However, the only thing he knows is they are not a club yet, and they need another member. Someone else to complete them.  
  
The fact that Rei has a feminine name is really not as relevant as Nagisa says it is. It is only a hint, only a clue. And the fact that he apparently seems to push everyone away is only a call for help, for Nagisa. And he represents everything Nagisa ever hated about the previous time in school, and he knows that is not life, not to him. He attaches himself to Ryuugazaki because he needs him. He needs his beauty, and he somehow sees there is so much more behind a wall of cold rejection. Rei is not like everyone else, Nagisa tells himself that for days, while he latches onto the amazing athlete (he has no other words for him but 'amazing' and 'beautiful': he needs  _amazing_  and  _beautiful_  so much in his life) and drags him like a living, energetic, bubbly river to the pool, to a place which Rei seems to hate. But Nagisa knows that the bespectacled boy only needs to see beauty to follow it like a butterfly is inevitably attracted by flowers.   
And sure, he sees it. The look on those purple eyes is all Nagisa needs to know the pieces are finally coming together. His heart soars, and he beams when Rei asks whether he could ever swim like that. Nagisa is sure of it. He has no logical way to know that, but he just knows.   
Even when the newcomer reveals himself to not know the first thing about swimming, the blond's knowledge that everything is going to be alright, it does not waver. And that was his missing piece in the past, that was why he had seemed so utterly unable to feel anything. The presence of someone to share his smiles with. Otherwise, what would he smile for?  
As long as he is with his friends, it is going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I'm unable to see anything Free!-related without pushing Nagisa in the middle of it. Anyway this was entirely written for a prompt with a free theme, except it had to have 5 characters, no more and no less...  
> btw I probably put too much of myself in the first paragraph. I couldn't help it ;_;   
> Gifted to altairattorney because she loves these babies just like I do and she likes gen fics and I'm sorry I half-assed Rei's paragraph but I couldn't find a good angle (WEIRDLY ENOUGH) to write about why Nagisa wanted him specifically without bringing ~romance~ into it hah O_O I've never really understood Rei anyway, so... NNGHHOOOHHHH!!11!!


End file.
